The Raven wrote:
"Scott Ferrin" wrote in message
...
How do you figure it would be at a lower cost when Boeing would be
footing the entire developement bill *and* they'd be sold in fewer
numbers than the F-35?

I'm speculating that it could be cheaper once you drop certain JSF
requirements that aren't in high demand by other global military
forces. VTOL is one, sure people may desire it but few can justify it
on cost and practicality.

Let's imagine you could drive the development costs down for a non-VSTOL
single-configuration design. You're still talking about system complexity
comaprable to Eurofighter, which is costing tens of billions of dollars to
develop. Even the cheapest modern combat aircraft program, Gripen, is
costing around $5-8 billion for development. And that's a very basic
deasign comapred to this F-32.

Given the very limited potential export market, Boeing could not possibly
justify this cost. The simple fact is that overseas buyers are seldom
interested in aircraft types not adopted by the US military. For examples,
see the F-20 and F-18L.

Who funds Boeings development of any commercial
aircraft today?

Boeing.

Exactly, and thus the whole argument about governmental funding
becomes weaker. If they can perform full R&D on very expensive
relatively low production aircraft

I don't think you know what you're talking about. Boeing's commercial
developments are all predicated on very *large* production runs, at least in
comparison to possible exports of your notional F-32. For example, they
just launcheed development of the 7E7, at an estimated $7-10 billion, which
is not quite a "bet-the-company" program, but not far from it. They project
a market of 2,500-3,000 aircraft in this size class, and hope to take
significantly more than half of them. So they are talking about selling
over 1,500 aircraft to make this a viable project. The worldwde market for
a strike fighter like the F-32 would be far lower (hundreds at most), even
if it wasn't totally closed out by the F-35 and European competitors.

Take manufacturing aside and
consider that each F-32 would be 100% profit. At five billion you'd
have to sell 167 aircraft just to break even.

167 wouldn't be that hard to sell when individual potential customers
are already looking at buying 100.

But as Scott poitns out, the real breakeven is much higher. I'd guess it's
probably pushing a thousand aircraft. The market is't big enough to support
this.

That's if they cost $0
to build and if it was only $5 billion more to develope it and Boeing
making $0 dollars in the end. Factor in cost of materials and
manufacturing and a reasonable profit

Most defence contracts do not have the "reasonable profit" that
commercial industry expects.

If Boeing launched development of a fighter as a commercial venture, they'd
have to expect commercial returns. If they didn't, thy'de be better off
spending the money on commercial aircraft ventures (like 7E7).


and the number of aircraft you
have to sell to make it viable climbs dramatically.

I don't think it would be that hard to sell a budget orientated
stealth fighter, noting statements currently produced comes close to
JSF requirements.

This is a real problem area. Boeing cannot freely market stealth
technology. The government has a legitimate interest in maintaining control
over low-observable materials and techniques, which means that Boeing can
either offer their design to the exact same set of pre-selected countries
looking at the F-35 (with its much longer produciton runsand guaranteed US
product support) or they have to strip the stealth out and market a
second-rate alternative. That has not worked really well before (F-16/79
anyone?)


If we assume the initial partner orders were in the vicinity of 400
units @ 30M there would be enough margin to cover manufacturing and
profit.

That's just covering likely development cosst with little left over for
manufacturing, much less profit. And a 400-plane run is wildy optimistic.
You are countnig on this plane winning all of the major non-US programs in
the next decade, basically.

Interestingly, being a SDD partner to JSF doesn't tie you into buying
aircraft. Many partners have joined to hedge their bets on final
purchase whilst simultaneously getting access to some of the
technology and contracts to be awarded.

But having invested significant money in F-35, how likely are they do spend
the same money again for another candidate? Especially since it would kill
their industrial involvement in the F-35 program.


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Tom Schoene Replace "invalid" with "net" to e-mail
"If brave men and women never died, there would be nothing
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